User Ratings & Reviews

On tap tonight at the River Road Tavern Tap Takeover.
Came to my stool a fairly clear golden color without much of a head. The aroma is quite fruity and tart with lots of sour cherries apricots and lemons as a well as a hint of bready malt and a slightly earthy aroma. The flavor follows the aroma quite well. Tart fruit mixed with a bit of bread and caramel and a hint of funk. Medium body with a moderate level of carbonation and a tart almost puckering mouthfeel. This is a very nice sour ale, I quite enjoyed it, its too bad its taken me this long to find it.

A- Pours a translucent slightly reddish orange with not much head- maybe a quarter finger of white head that dissipates fairly fast and doesn't leave too much head.

S- Brett and grassy funk mixed with a little bit of vinegar acidity, and some alcohol. The sour funk brett smell is definitely the most predominant. Average aroma strength, not the best smelling sour I've had though- a little bit too much of a vinegar acidity.

T- Sour brett with some lemon, hay, grass, etc.. It has a nice sour brett flavor balanced with the rest of the flavors.

O- This was a decent sour. I feel like Smuttynose is really a hit or miss and I felt like this was one of their better beers that I've had. Nice level of brett funk that balanced well with the other flavors and went down very easily, just a little bit too much vinegar acidity. I would try this again, but definitely not go out of my way to obtain it.

Poured into a chalice. This one pours a clear orange color with a small cap of white head.

Brett right up front with a bit of a citrus background. Seems to have a bit of a tart character in the background. A little bit of citrus on the pallet with a bit a good brett overtone. A little tart in the finish.

The body is light with good carbonation. Overall this one is enjoyable for sure. Nice and light and easy to drink.

Very clear, dark amber pour with no head and light carbonation. The nose is very tart and has a light sweetness. You get Brett in the nose, but it's a weird beer...unlike any Brett beer I've had. The taste is weird as well; it's very tart upfront, but finishes buttery instead of dry. I was expecting this beer to be more Orval-like, but this isn't like an Orval at all. The tartness and carbonation (what's left after a week) makes this drink like a slightly fruity lambic (apricot/peach) initially, but it finishs a completely different beer. I must give them some credit for making a beer that's different and new, but it's not quite perfect.

Appearance (3.0): Essentially no head on this, it foams for a bit and settles to a thin collar of off-white carbonation around the edge of the glass, leaving no lacing. The body, however, is quite attractive, boasting a crystal-clear bronze color—very clean and crisp-looking.

Smell (4.0): All brett here: slightly musty, with a moderate white pepper character laced all over the place. There’s a lightly sweet malt character, enhanced by that strange fruitiness that super-bretty beers will develop: some green apple, some apricot. Not a bad-smelling beer, for sure.

Taste (4.0): Somewhat tart, not sour, with more of the same fruit tones (green apple’s crisp, tart sweetness, richer and bolder apricot, and the kind of neutral sweetness of pear), more white pepper behind the fruitiness, and some tame, low-lying mustiness throughout, operating underneath the rest of this. Malt? Hops? Both are very, very neutral here, as this is definitely a yeast- (and without a question, brett-) forward beer. Extraordinarily vinous in nature, actually—this has more in common with white wine than it does with your typical beer.

Overall (3.5): A Brett story, for sure. This has so many qualities that strike me as vinous more than anything else. From what I can tell, this beer was apparently brewed with Brett B and a Trappist strain, then inoculated with lacto and aged in neutral oak barrels for 10 months. Given that knowledge, the low carbonation and yeast-forwardness of this beer makes a lot more sense. Not what I’d call a Belgian Pale Ale, but that’s what it is for lack of a better category on here (wouldn’t really call it an American Wild, either). Interesting beer, glad to have tried. Thanks again, Jeremy!

Review for Serving Type: Bottle
I've also had it on tap. Better bottle conditioned though.

Appearance: good over all color a peachy orange with good hazing.

Smells of funk and sour, small nuances of barnyard hay, good citrus notes that make the corners of my jaw twinge.

Taste of the above but down toned. The aromatics are more pungent than the flavor. Slightly subdued but good over all drinkability. I drank two bottles to myself on Monday. Delicious over all but a little lacking in mouth feel.

The mouth feel is what ends up bringing down the average of the quality. After speaking with the brewer the bottles were not given champagne yeast for bottle conditioning which is the reason for the lack of carbonation. It was a first time sour beer making mistake that will be corrected on the next batch. Brett-lacto is the finishing yeast strain which ate the shit out of the primary fermentation yeast strain as well as the residual sugars left over from primary. More carbonation would have lightened the body of the beer and made this thing a fantastic garden sipper... next time.

Presentation: Served on tap into a Smuttynose Big Beer tulip glass. A really large pour (well over 12 oz.).

Appearance: Golden yellow in color, but doesn't pour much of a head surprisingly. A few fizzy white bubbles recede almost immediately into nothing.

Aroma" Big lemon and tart green apples upfront. I figured this might be more heavy on the funk and light on the sour from the name, but there is definitely a pretty vibrant sour character. I do get a bit of the brett as well, but not as much as I expected.

Taste: Sour green apple and lemon notes upfront. A sort of white wine sweetness is present as well. This is actually a lot sweeter than I would have suspected. The brett notes become more noticable as the sour fades, but they seem a bit underdeveloped and a bit muddled. Pretty refreshing overall, but not a stand out.

Mouthfeel: Surprisingly heavy for the style. There is a good amount of body and it is a bit syrupy. Carbonation is not flat but definitely on the lower end of the spectrum.

Overall, a decent sour beer from Smuttynose and a good attempt for their first real shot at the style. I think it really suffered from the mouthfeel being too syrupy and the lack of carbonation, which might have brightened everything up a bit. I would be interested to see how this is holding up in a couple years, but right now it is jsut average.